4 Ah, sottish soul! said I, When back to its cage again I saw it fly: Fool! to resume her broken chain, And row her galley here again! Fool! to that body to return, Where it condemned and destined is to burn! Once dead, how can it be Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee, That thou shouldst come to live it o'er again in me? OF WIT. 1 Tell me, O tell! what kind of thing is Wit, Thou who master art of it; For the first matter loves variety less; Less women love it, either in love or dress: A thousand different shapes it bears, Comely in thousand shapes appears: Yonder we saw it plain, and here 'tis now, Like spirits, in a place, we know not how. 2 London, that vends of false ware so much store, In no ware deceives us more: For men, led by the colour and the shape, Like Zeuxis' birds, fly to the painted grape. Some things do through our judgment pass, As through a multiplying-glass; And sometimes, if the object be too far, We take a falling meteor for a star. 3 Hence 'tis a wit, that greatest word of fame, Grows such a common name; And wits by our creation they become, Just so as tit'lar bishops made at Rome. 'Tis not a tale, 'tis not a jest, Admired with laughter at a feast, Nor florid talk, which can that title gain; The proofs of wit for ever must remain. 4 'Tis not to force some lifeless verses meet With their five gouty feet; All everywhere, like man's, must be the soul, And reason the inferior powers control. Such were the numbers which could call The stones into the Theban wall. Such miracles are ceased; and now we see No towns or houses raised by poetry. 5 Yet 'tis not to adorn and gild each part; That shows more cost than art. Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear; Rather than all things wit, let none be there. Several lights will not be seen, If there be nothing else between. Men doubt, because they stand so thick i' the sky, If those be stars which paint the galaxy. 6 'Tis not when two like words make up one noise, Jests for Dutch men and English boys; In which who finds out wit, the same may see In an'grams and acrostics poetry. Much less can that have any place At which a virgin hides her face; Such dross the fire must purge away; 'tis just The author blush there where the reader must. 7 'Tis not such lines as almost crack the stage, When Bajazet begins to rage: Nor a tall met'phor in the bombast way, Nor the dry chips of short-lunged Seneca: Nor upon all things to obtrude And force some old similitude. What is it then, which, like the Power Divine, We only can by negatives define?